This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Moving, adding and changing power infrastructure and IT equipment, load balancing and power capping all require accurate and timely knowledge of power mapping from AC source to IT equipment. Methods presently exist to send intelligent signals over the AC power line (i.e., the “X-10” protocol). However, these methods typically require complex algorithms. Moreover, they do not scale easily and often suffer from signal attenuation when passing through capacitive and inductive devices. Still further, they often do not include power phase information and often require additional circuitry to be installed into new or existing IT and power equipment.
Another existing system relies on agent software installed in every server in a data center. Power measurements are made at the rack level. The system is quite complex, and while it may provide identification down to individual servers, it does not have the capability of mapping connections back to the building AC power source (i.e., mapping connections “upstream” of the UPS).
Still further, existing systems that are able to associate a specific UPS with one or more downstream devices being powered by the UPS still may not be able to identify which specific phases of a multi-phase UPS output the device(s) is/are associated with. For those components that are powered by only one or two phase(s) of a multiphase output from a given UPS, it would be valuable to be able to also identify which individual phases are powering which downstream devices.
Accordingly, it will be appreciated that existing methods for power mapping from an AC source to IT equipment can represent a significant cost investment and still be subject to significant limitations.